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Thanks for this, Roland. I had no idea Battletech had been called something different before, nor had I realized there had been that legal hassle regarding the rights to the use of the mech designs. I had always wondered why the mechs looked like stuff from Robotech but I always assumed that some sort of deal had been cut (i.e. like The Transformers Skyfire/Jetfire, which had obviously been a Macross varitech.).

And yeah, even for a casual Mechwarrior fan like me the Timberwolf is the coolest looking mech.

SeekerLancer

Yeah, even Transformers has faced the sue-happy wrath of Harmony Gold who as recently as this year’s SDCC filed suit against Hasbro for releasing a new Jetfire toy that resembles the Valkyrie fighter, or “Veritech” as it’s known in Robotech.

I’m convinced the only reason they sit on the western rights to the Macross franchise is so they can sue people over it. Macross is such a tangled mess of legal problems (even back in the day pre-Robotech they ended up not being able to use the Macross design for Sky/Jetfire in the cartoon) that would probably be made a lot simpler with Harmony Gold out of the way.

Some of the non-Macross unseen did make a bit of a comeback a few years ago, but I guess other legal troubles arose and they were quickly pulled again.

Gallen_Dugall

Outstanding as always. Keep up this series of videos please.

Moppet

A lovely entry in your retrospective. It makes me sad I missed this one back then, but, I think I’ll get to correcting that now. No one should be passing over this retrospective, it’s well worth watching.

The_Stig

Of all the franchises that deserve to be brought back, MechWarrior is somewhere near the top of the list. The least they could do is put MW2 on Steam FFS.

SeekerLancer

Loved these retrospective videos. Great job!

This is the first MechWarrior game I played (shortly after playing and enjoying EarthSiege 2 but that couldn’t prepare me for this) and it’s still my favorite.

In a lot of ways, this was MechWarrior 3 except Activision didn’t have the rights to call it that. I love the economy and the way the universe is handled here (Dead-Eye is great and really sets the tone for the rest of the game) and I love the clunkier, more unwieldy mechs. The political intrigue of the Inner Sphere perspective and the awesomely handled clan invasion story got me interested in the universe which lead me to the earlier games and eventually the Battletech novels.

Though it’s not just nostalgia speaking when I say this is my favorite. This was a solid game that took what made MechWarrior 2 great and expanded upon it in wonderful ways. The campaign missions were so well thought out with memorable glorious bastard moments that make you feel like an action hero after overcoming overwhelming odds with backhanded tactics. After Mercs I was hooked on mech games for life.

I agree that MechWarrior 2 has a cleaner, more elegant look to it that held up better in retrospect, but I also think the gritty texture mapping fits Mercs pretty well.

REACTOR ONLINE. SENSORS ONLINE. WEAPONS ONLINE. ALL SYSTEMS NOMINAL.

Makes me want to go play the game right now. Hope to see the next video soon!